PRC, Inc.

PRC, Inc. BNUMBER: B-274698.2; B-274698.3 DATE: January 23, 1997 TITLE: PRC, Inc. ********************************************************************** DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE A protected decision was issued on the date below and was subject to a GAO Protective Order. This version has been redacted or approved by the parties involved for public release. Matter of:PRC, Inc. File: B-274698.2; B-274698.3 Date:January 23, 1997 L. James D'Agostino, Esq., Timothy B. Harris, Esq., and William B. Fisher, Esq., Wickwire Gavin, for the protester. Stuart Young, Esq., DynCorp for TESCO, an intervenor. Vera Meza, Esq., and Phillip A. Weaver, Esq., the Department of the Army, for the agency. Henry J. Gorczycki, Esq., and James A. Spangenberg, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1. Award to lower-rated, lower-cost offeror is unobjectionable where, although the solicitation emphasized technical factors over cost, the agency reasonably determined that there was no substantive difference between the proposals that warranted the additional cost of the higher-rated proposal. 2. Protest alleging unfair competitive advantage accruing to an offeror as a result of employing the retired commanding officer of an organization which included the procuring activity is denied where the record does not show that this individual accessed competitively useful inside information. DECISION PRC, Inc. protests an award to TESCO, a joint venture,[1] under request for proposals (RFP) No. DATM01-95-R-0019, issued by the U.S. Army Materiel Command (AMC), Operational Test and Evaluation Command (OPTEC) Contracting Activity, for test support services required by the Test and Evaluation Command (TEXCOM), Fort Hood, Texas. PRC protests the reasonableness of the evaluation and source selection decision, and that TESCO obtained an unfair competitive advantage through its employment of an Army procurement official. We deny the protest. BACKGROUND The RFP, issued on November 9, 1995, contemplated the award of a cost-plus-award-fee contract for 1 year with 3 option years. The RFP stated a best value basis for award with the following evaluation factors listed in descending order of importance: technical, management, past performance, and cost. The technical and management factors, which were to be rated both adjectivally and with numerical scores, contained numerous stated subfactors and sub-subfactors with their relative importance. Past performance was to be rated adjectivally and with a performance risk assessment. Cost was not to be point scored, but was to be evaluated by a cost realism analysis and a most probable cost (MPC) estimation. The agency received proposals from three offerors, including PRC and TESCO--the incumbent contractor--by the February 4, 1996, due date. The proposals were evaluated, discussions conducted with all three offerors, and best and final offers (BAFO) requested. All three offerors submitted BAFOs which the agency evaluated as follows: PRC TESCO Offeror A Technical 93--Excellent 92--Excellent 89--Good Management 87--Good 83--Good 85--Good Combined 90.6--Excellent 88.4--Good 87.4--Good Past PerformanceSuperior Low Risk Good Low Risk Good Low Risk Proposed Cost $67,881,347 $66,455,607 $66,310,264 Total MPC $69,706,454 $67,264,257 $67,289,092 The following numerical and adjectival rating scale was stated in the source selection plan (SSP), which was not disclosed to offerors prior to these protests: excellent 90-100; good 80-89; marginal 70-79; and unacceptable 1-69.[2] There were separate evaluation committees for each factor. The evaluators on both the technical committee and management committee individually assigned adjectival ratings to each proposal for every evaluation criterion beginning at the sub-subfactor level and working up through the subfactors to the overall technical or management factor rating. They followed the same process for assigning numeric scores, except they started assigning point scores at the subfactor level. Additionally, each evaluator provided narrative comments describing any advantages, disadvantages, or deficiencies which that evaluator determined to exist in a proposal.[3] The evaluators within each committee then met as a group and, using this same general format, assigned consensus ratings, scores, and narrative comments to each proposal. The consensus narrative comments for each committee specifically stated the benefit or impact to the government associated with each evaluated advantage or disadvantage and, where a specific advantage was considered to be an innovation, the narrative so stated.